Google Analytics Gets Bot And Spider Filtering

Google announced that it is adding bot and spider filtering to Google Analytics after hearing from users that it's been hard to identify real traffic coming to pages.

There's a new checkbox option in the view level of the management user interface. It's labeled "Exclude traffic from known bots and spiders".

"Selecting this option will exclude all hits that come from bots and spiders on the IAB known bots and spiders list," Google says. "The backend will exclude hits matching the User Agents named in the list as though they were subject to a profile filter. This will allow you to identify the real number of visitors that are coming to your site."

Google notes that Nestlé has been testing the feature, and shares this quote from their Google Analytics specialist:

“The Bot filter solution is essential for getting deeper insights. View level availability let us stay fully aligned with Best Practices provided to all site owners. Very easy to use, understand and communicate across thousands of Google Analytics users.”

Google didn't give a timeframe for the roll-out, and as others have pointed out, it's not available for everyone just yet. Keep an eye out for it.